Last night's installment of "Modern Family" showcased a breathtaking, seductively alluring figure adorned with an enticing exotic accent, a mane of glossy dark tresses, and a physique that was nothing short of mesmerizing. And praise be, for a change, it wasn't Gloria stealing the spotlight! Even more delightful, it was Claire who took center stage in objectifying beauty, as Gilles Marini—renowned for flexing his acting prowess as the Naked Guy in the "Sex and the City" film—portrayed a sexually enigmatic hunk that awakened Claire's inner Samantha Jones. Whenever "Modern Family" manages to liberate Claire from her monotonous OCD housewife routine and reminds us of her playful spirit, well, suffice it to say, in our best Kim Cattrall impersonation: Sweetheart, it was absolutely fabulous.
Manny, too, is inching towards maturity. When he described his latest crush Bella as having "recently blossomed like a purple lilac in April," Gloria instantaneously grasped that he was referring to "the pooberty." Then, when Manny received a mysterious package and retreated to his room to revel in its contents in solitude, Gloria feared the worst (isn't it amusing how we embrace Manny's sophistication in romance, yet the notion of him being a typical hormone-fueled 13-year-old boy fills us with, ewwwww). A panicked Gloria pondered whether it was time to initiate "the talk" with Manny, but Jay was engrossed in a bizarre Colombian soap opera—whom he fondly imagined to be named in Spanish for "Big Hair and Shouting"—and thus, of little assistance. Eventually, when Manny cried out, "Help! I'm stuck!" Gloria dispatched Jay to his aid, though not for the reason one might suspect. Phew. Manny had been hanging upside down from a bar in his closet in a desperate bid to increase his height to impress Bella. It hadn't even crossed his mind that he could've utilized the $50 he spent on the Lengthinator to procure a two-year subscription to "Playboy." "It's never too late to grow in life," read the Lengthinator brochure, which also doubled as the episode's poignant Life Lessons narration. Jay vowed to tutor Manny in the art of working out to impress the ladies; Cam and Mitchell realized that leaving a gathering early wasn't necessarily a negative; Phil and Haley indulged in a lunch-tray sledding escapade on the college greens; and Claire? We can only hope that Claire appreciates that Julian pales in comparison to the dashing Clive Bixby.
